close up magic – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Multiple Parasol Production – Close Up

I’m still playing with using cocktail parasols. Here’s a quick video I made in my hotel room:

@louiefoxx World's Dumbest Magic Trick! #magictrick #cocktailumbrellas #cocktail #parasol #shimada #closeupmagic #louiefoxx #magician #hotelroom ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I made up three of the self opening cocktail parasols and they easily fit into a thumb tip. I might be able to get one more and still get the thumb tip onto the thumb. However I’m thinking that the thumb tip may not need to fit onto them thumb and it could really just be a holder for the parasols.

I do think it’s fun to produce the little parasols and maybe it’ll be a running gag or something in the show. I’ll keep playing with them, maybe something cooler will come up.

-Louie

Production Cocktail Parasol

After goofing around with the cocktail parasols that I bought, I figured out a way to make them self opening.

To make them self opening, it just takes a little loop of elastic…and a lot of help from my reading glasses!

I’m not sure what to do with a parasol that opens by itself, but it makes the ending of most tricks better than if I had to manually open it.

-Louie

Custom Printed Gimmicked Deck

I finally used MakePlayingCards.com to have a custom gimmicked deck made! I’ve used them in the past to get large size double blank cards, but those weren’t custom printed.

There wasn’t much from a design standpoint as I just used their standard card faces. This deck is a deck of double faced cards, but the back is all the same card. I had these made to do my version of something that Eric Stevens had shown recently at the NW Ring of Fire magic club.

The cards came out great, and I would totally use them again!

-Louie

Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte

Here’s a packet trick from the 1980’s that I came across.

I think Nick Trost’s Mexican Monte is a pretty solid routine. Here’s me doing the routine and my thought on how to improve it:

It’s really a small change at the end, and I think Nick really nailed it with this one. I’d change the patter, but it’s good and worth checking out if you find one at a magic swap meet!

-Louie

The First Ambitious Card

I love magic history, and learning where things I did come from. I’m still working through the JP Vallarino book and got to Vallarino’s Ambitious Card routine.

In it he mentions the first place that the Ambitious Card was publish. It was in a french book called Recueil de Tours de Physique Amusante. That title sounded familiar, so I went to my bookshelf and I have that book!

Unfortunately I can’t read french, so I can’t confirm it’s in there. It was cool to be reminded of a bit of history that lived on my shelf!

-Louie

Remembering an Old Seattle Magician

Recently I was hanging out with some magicians working on some new magic and someone looked up and saw the cards on the ceiling and wondered who put them there.

card on ceiling magic trick by cliff gustafson

I immediately knew, it was Cliff!!

I'm here on Wednesdays
A short film about magic cliff gustafson

In the 1990’s I met Cliff Gustafson, he was a Seattle magician who worked a lot of bars in the Seattle area. It feels like he worked 1-2 bars a night seven nights a week! He stood out, he wore a tuxedo with a bowtie and everyone knew him!

Cliff wasn’t the best technical or original magician in the world, don’t get me wrong, all the tricks he did were solid! What he excelled at the hardest part of performing magic, he was likable! When you watched Cliff perform, you instantly liked him!

Cliff was always really cool to me, and you can watch a short documentary about him that has some clips of him performing at: robhanna.com

Cliff passed away in 2016, and Seattle lost it’s hardest working magician!

-Louie

Ricky Jay’s Cup and Ball Routine

I don’t know if Ricky Jay ever really published a book on the material he performed. It appears he published mostly historical stuff, and not so much technical “how to” material.

Here’s a notecard that I came across where Ricky Jay explains a cup and ball style routine that he did on the Mike Douglas show:

I did some internet searching and couldn’t find video of this appearance, if you have it, I’d love to see it!

-Louie

Creative Problem Solving at the Gig!

One of the holiday parties I did this month was a HUGE event with 1,600 people. One thing the event planner didn’t give me was any sort of credentials to get in and out of the building once the event started. I honestly didn’t think about it until after my roving set and I was going to move that gear and clothes to my car to make packing out after the show quicker.

Luckily the green room was for all the “vendors” and I happened to be chatting with someone from the security company. I asked if the security at the parking lot door would let me back in and he said no. His suggestion was to call the event planner and ask for a lanyard. With the event underway and an event this large (it took up two floors of the convention center!) they last thing I want to do is bug the event planner for a lanyard/badge. They’re probably dealing with a lot of problems, like catering issues or whatever.

Here’s the solution I came up with. I learned that the security company was all retired cops and they all knew each other. I took a picture with the guy I was chatting with and got his name and number.

When I tired to get back into the building I was stopped by security how pressed me about me not having a lanyard with a badge. I showed them the picture and told them to call Jeff and he’d vouch for me. As soon as they saw the picture, they let me in!

Sure, asking the event planner for a badge is 100% reasonable. However I try to be easy to work with and minor problems myself. That’s a big secret to success in entertainment, be easy to work!

-Louie

My Favorite Deck of Cards!

My favorite deck of cards are the old Cincinnati, OH Bicycle Cards. They moved to Kentucky in 2009, so these cards having been made in almost 15 years! As I travel I visit junk shops and whenever I find these unopened or decks with the seals intact, I buy them.

Here’s my current hoard of them!

I don’t use these cards for shows, I use them as my person practice/fun decks.

When I find something I like, I stock up on them!

-Louie

Placeholder Card Trick

Inspiration comes in some strange places. I was cleaning out my storage closet in the office and found a gimmick that was for an ACAAN that was marketed in the late 1990’s. The trick was garbage, and was about to throw it away when I realized part of the gimmick had potential for a different trick.

Here’s the video I sent to my brainstorming group a while ago:

I like the concept of the card turning blank from a deck that’s in order. It makes it very easy to determine that the selected card is the one that’s blank. I don’t think I’ve seen a trick like this before, where a card turns blank in a deck that’s in order. Usually trick where the selected card turns blank, it’s away from the deck or it happens from a packet, like Gordon Beam’s Limited Edition trick.

I’ve been having fun doing this trick which I call Placeholder.

-Louie